Sad World

[Guest Astro Cortex]

Sad World (1993 Fax)

 

 

 

1. 05:09 Apadana

2. 30:41 Glyan

3. 17:42 Harsin

4. 14:32 Kirkuk

5. 10:10 Terasury

 

All tracks written by Dr. Atmo & Ramin

 

 

This was the first CD in the Fax PS series (=sublabel, for all Fax releases in which Pete Namlook himself wasn't involved). It's a collaboration between Dr. Atmo, a very frequent Fax contributor, and Ramin Naghachian, who was also part of the Afrotrance project. Sad World is some great ambient with ethnic influences.

 

Apadana is a nice short intro with ethnic percussion and some female chanting. It sets the atmosphere for the disc very well.

 

Glyan starts out in an Orb kind of way, first a fanfare and then some echoing voice samples, I could swear I heard the same voice in one or even several Orb tracks The track developes into a very chilled and soothing piece with some nice laid-back percussive sounds in the distance. Quite repetitive track, but in a good way.

 

In Harsin we can hear nothing more than a flute, a tabla and later in the track a middle-eastern string instrument and a synth solo. And a male voice talking in some arabic language. So all in all we have a very organic sounding piece here, and it's all beatless and loosely constructed. It's sometimes hard for me not to lose attention but that's maybe because I don't understand what the voice is saying. It sounds as if he's telling an old Persian myth.

 

Kirkuk continues with a strong middle-eastern atmosphere. It is dominated by violins and a contrabass, which give it a classical touch and also quite a melancholic and melodramatic feel. And the synths in this track sound just magical

 

In Terasury we realize that the world isn't all that sad after all, and we get to hear a sitar, a choir, some strong but slow tribal percussion, a didgeridoo, and the returning voice from the first track. Nice one.

 

Though this is a very good chillout CD I have to mention that Sad World 2 & 3 are even better

 

Again a very hard to find release, I have the double disc (with SW2) edition on Instinct Records, which should be a bit easier to hunt down than the original.